1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the gathering of data, and, more particularly, to a method, computer program product and apparatus for applying adaptive sampling techniques to a static data set.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many situations are present that require the sampling of data such as terrain mapping, digitizing models, and any situation that requires ray tracing or casting. Often the data sets being sampled are static. In many cases, once the information gathered has been analyzed, it may be necessary to adjust the sample density and modify the number of samples being gathered based on the area of coverage being sampled in order to avoid over or under sampling.
Under sampling often manifests as “sparkles” in a reconstructed image. Prior solutions have been simply to arbitrarily adjust the sampling density and take more samples and repeat this process until finally the desired density is achieved. But these solutions have the drawback of being inefficient and time consuming.
Therefore it would be advantageous to have an improved method, computer program product and apparatus for applying adaptive sampling techniques to a static data set.